Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes Sunday through Thursday with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

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4.2.15

Venture capital woes further endanger Caddo politicians

With more disappointing news coming
from their venture capitalist endeavor in addition to other questionable
actions, members of the Caddo Parish Commission may find themselves having to
pay the fiddler in reelection attempts this fall.

Last
month, in a public meeting scheduled to explain why a target hiring date of
employees of the beginning of 2014 by Elio Motors, and production beginning
first in the middle of that year and then at the beginning of this year, have
all been deadlines that have been missed, the company announced it was pushing
back the production start date again until early 2016. In 2013, through
a complicated arrangement, essentially an arm of the parish bought
discarded General Motors infrastructure as a site for the firm to produce a mass-produced
concept vehicle that has been described as anything from futuristic to a scam.

This could not come at a good time
for about all of the commissioners, most of whom who voted to put taxpayer
money on the line with the assumption the Elio arrangement would pay off in
terms of jobs and tax revenue, instead of being left holding the bag, because
of this upcoming election year. Worse, most also have been complicit in a
number of other decisions that were not in the taxpayers’ best interests.

The recent follies of Commission
majorities are legion. Having the good fortune to sit on lots of land with mineral
possibilities underneath them when the hydraulic fracturing/horizontal drilling
revolution began, the windfall that came seemed to addle permanently too many
of its members. Besides throwing away money on the Elio venture capital
project, twice
it tried to slip a tax increase by the voters despite sitting on a surplus
about half the size of the parish’s budget. At first narrowly defeated, they
tried it again months later and suffered a landslide against. Only Kenneth Epperson (Stephanie
Lynch having voted against it the first time but absent the second) had the
sense to vote against bringing the idea to voters bothtimes.

At the same time as the first vote,
commissioners then wanted
to extend term limits out from three to five years, which also ended up
failing at the polls. Only Doug
Dominick, Matthew Linn,
and Michael Thibodauxvoted
against that. And perhaps why they voted for that was because the job, defined
as part-time in nature, was now paying better than some full-time parish
employees’ positions, because some years ago the Commission voted, by tying the
two things together, to give its members pay raises every time they gave one to
parish employees.

So you have here characters who
have given their positions hefty pay increases, wanted to embed themselves into
lengthier stays in overpaid sinecures, wanted to increase taxes by not letting
a tax wither away even though the parish sits on a mountain of cash, and who
toss around that cash on speculative projects, one of which is becoming less
tenable as time passes. Every one of them who served through 2014 supported at
least one of these measures; some went for them all.

Only David Cox (because of
switching districts, Epperson technically can run again and not violate terms
limits) cannot run again, and whoever runs for the District 7 spot vacated by
Lynch’s successful City Council quest did not participate in any of these
controversial decisions, but every other incumbent who opts for reelection is
accountable for these actions. Their opponents will not likely pass on
reminding voters about these, and if the results of last year’s Caddo Parish
School Board contests, which featured incumbents seen responsible for
contentious superintendent searches and overall system decline who got ousted
or reelected with difficulty, indicate anything, because of these actions some
commissioners won’t be returning in 2016.

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